1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of genetic engineering and more particularly to the insertion of genes for the protein apoaequorin into recombinant DNA vectors and to the production of apoaequorin in recipient strains of microorganisms.
2. Description of the Background
Apoaequorin is a single polypeptide chain protein which can be isolated from the luminous jellyfish Aequorea victoria. When this protein contains one molecule of coelenterate luciferin bound non-covalently to it, it is known as aequorin. Aequorin is oxidized in the presence of calcium ions to produce visible light. Once light is produced, the spent protein (apoaequorin) can be purified from the oxidized luciferin and subsequently recharged using natural or synthetic luciferin under appropriate conditions. The addition of calcium ions to the recharged aequorin will again result in the production of light. Apoaequorin can therefore be used in various chemical and biochemical assays as a marker.
Natural apoaequorin is not a single compound but rather represents a mixture of molecular species. When pure natural aequorin, representing that of many thousands of individual Aequorea, is subjected to electrophoresis (O. Gabriel, Methods Enzymol. (1971) 22:565-578) in alkaline buffers under non-denaturing conditions, including 0.1 mM EDTA in all buffers, at least six distinct bands of blue luminescence are visible when the gel (0.5 cm.times.10 cm) is immersed in 0.1M CaCl.sub.2. This observation agrees with that of J. R. Blinks and G. C. Harres (Fed. Proc. (1975) 34:474) who observed as many as twelve luminescent bands after the isoelectric focusing of a similar extract. Blinks and Harres observed more species because isoelectric focusing is capable of higher resolution than is electrophoresis. However, none of the bands was ever isolated as a pure peptide.
Furthermore, it is difficult to produce sufficient aequorin or apoaequorin from jellyfish or other natural sources to provide the amounts necessary for use in bioluminescence assays. Accordingly, an improved means for producing apoaequorin in sufficient quantities for commercial utilization is greatly needed.
Recently developed techniques have made it possible to employ microorganisms, capable of rapid and abundant growth, for the synthesis of commercially useful proteins and peptides, regardless of their source in nature. These techniques make it possible to genetically endow a suitable microorganism with the ability to synthesize a protein or peptide normally made by another organism. The technique makes use of a fundamental relationship which exists in all living organisms between the genetic material, usually DNA, and the proteins synthesized by the organism. This relationship is such that the amino acid sequence of the protein is reflected in the nucleotide sequence of the DNA. There are one or more trinucleotide sequence groups specifically related to each of the twenty amino acids most commonly occuring in proteins. The specific relationship between each given trinucleotide sequence and its corresponding amino acid constitutes the genetic code. The genetic code is believed to be the same or similar for all living organisms. As a consequence, the amino acid sequence of every protein or peptide is reflected by a corresponding nucleotide sequence, according to a well understood relationship. Furthermore, this sequence of nucleotides can, in principle, be translated by any living organism.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ GENETIC CODE ______________________________________ Phenylalanine(Phe) TTK Histidine(His) CAK Leucine(Leu) XTY Glutamine(Gln) CAJ Isoleucine(Ile) ATM Asparagine(Asn) AAK Methionine(Met) ATG Lysine(Lys) AAJ Valine(Val) GTL Aspartic acid(Asp) GAK Serine(Ser) QRS Glutamic acid(Glu) GAJ Proline(Pro) CCL Cysteine(Cys) TGK Threonine(Thr) ACL Tryptophan(Trp) TGG Alanine(Ala) GCL Arginine(Arg) WGZ Tyrosine(Tyr) TAK Glycine(Gly) GGL Termination signal TAJ Termination signal TGA ______________________________________ Key: Each 3letter triplet represents a trinucleotide of DNA having a 5' end on the left and a 3' end on the right. The letters stand for the purine or pyrimidine bases forming the nucleotide sequence. A = adenine G = guanine C = cytosine J = A or G K = T or C L = A, T, C, or G M = A, C, or T T = Thymine X = T or C if Y is A or G X = C if Y is C or T Y = A, G, C, or T if X is C Y = A or G if X is T W = C or A if Z is C or T W = C if Z is C or T Z = A, G, C, or T if W is G Z = A or G if W is A QR = TC if S is A, G, C, or T QR = AG if S is T or C S = A, G, C, or T if QR is TC S = T or C if QR is AG
The trinucleotides of Table 1, termed codons, are presented as DNA trinucleotides, as they exist in the genetic material of a living organism. Expression of these codons in protein synthesis requires intermediate formation of messenger RNA (mRNA), as described more fully, infra. The mRNA codons have the same sequences as the DNA codons of Table 1, except that uracil is found in place of thymine. Complementary trinucleotide DNA sequences having opposite strand polarity are functionally equivalent to the codons of Table 1, as is understood in the art. An important and well known feature of the genetic code is its redundancy, whereby, for most of the amino acids used to make proteins, more than one coding nucleotide triplet may be employed. Therefore, a number of different nucleotide sequences may code for a given amino acid sequence. Such nucleotide sequences are considered functionally equivalent since they can result in the production of the same amino acid sequence in all organisms, although certain strains may translate some sequences more efficiently than they do others. Occasionally, a methylated variant of a purine or pyrimidine may be found in a given nucleotide sequence. Such methylations do not affect the coding relationship in any way.
It its basic outline, a method of endowing a microorganism with the ability to synthesize a new protein involves three general steps: (1) isolation and purification (or chemical synthesis) of the specific gene or nucleotide sequence containing the genetically coded information for the amino acid sequence of the desired protein, (2) recombination of the isolated nucleotide sequence with an appropriate vector, typically the DNA of a bacteriophage of plasmid, and (3) transfer of the vector to the appropriate microorganism and selection of a strain of the recipient microorganism containing the desired genetic information.
A fundamental difficulty encountered in attempts to exploit commercially the above-described process lies in the first step, the isolation and purification of the desired specific genetic information. DNA exists in all living cells in the form of extremely high molecular weight chains of nucleotides. A cell may contain more than 10,000 structural genes, coding for the amino acid sequences of over 10,000 specific proteins, each gene having a sequence many hundreds of nucleotides in length. For the most part, four different nucleotide bases make up all the existing sequences. These are adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). The long sequences comprising the structural genes of specific proteins are consequently very similar in overall chemical composition and physical properties. The separation of one such sequence from the plethora of other sequences present in isolated DNA cannot ordinarily be accomplished by conventional physical and chemical preparative methods.
Two general methods have been used in the prior art to accomplish step (1) in the above-described general procedure. The first method is sometimes referred to as the shotgun technique. The DNA of an organism is fragmented into segments generally longer than the desired nucleotide sequence. Step (1) of the above-described process is essentially by passed. The DNA fragments are immediately recombined with the desired vector, without prior purification of specific sequences. Optionally, a crude fractionation step may be interposed. The selection techniques of microbial genetics are relied upon to select, from among all the possibilities, a strain of microorganism containing the desired genetic information. The shotgun procedure suffers from two major disadvantages. More importantly, the procedure can result in the transfer of hundreds of unknown genes into recipient microorganisms, so that during the experiment, new strains are created, having unknown genetic capabilities. Therefore, the use of such a procedure could create a hazard for laboratory workers and for the environment. A second disadvantage of the shotgun method is that it is extremely inefficient for the production of the desired strain, and is dependent upon the use of a selection technique having sufficient resolution to compensate for the lack of fractionation in the first step. However, methods of overcoming these disadvantages exist, as will become apparent in later sections of this application.
The second general method takes advantage of the fact that the total genetic information in a cell is seldom, if ever, expressed at any given time. In particular, the differentiated tissues of higher organisms may be synthesizing only a minor portion of the proteins which the organism is capable of making at any one time. In extreme cases, such cells may be synthesizing predominantly one protein. In such extreme cases, it has been possible to isolate the nucleotide sequence coding for the protein in question by isolating the corresponding messenger RNA from the appropriate cells.
Messenger RNA functions in the process of converting the nucleotide sequence information of DNA into the amino acid sequence structure of a protein. In the first step of this process, termed transcription, a local segment of DNA having a nucleotide sequence which specifies a protein to be made, is copied into RNA. RNA is a polynucleotide similar to DNA except that ribose is substituted for deoxyribose and uracil is used in place of thymine. The nucleotide bases in RNA are capable of entering into the same kind of base pairing relationships that are known to exist between the complementary strands of DNA. A and U (T) are complementary, and G and C are complementary. The RNA transcript of a DNA nucleotide sequence will be complementary to the copied sequence. Such RNA is termed messenger RNA (mRNA) because of its status as intermediary between the genetic apparatus of the cell and its protein synthesizing apparatus. Generally, the only mRNA sequences present in the cell at any given time are those which correspond to proteins being actively synthesized at that time. Therefore, a differentiated cell whose function is devoted primarily to the synthesis of a single protein will contain primarily the RNA species corresponding to that protein. In those instances where it is feasible, the isolation and purification of the appropriate nucleotide sequence coding for a given protein can be accomplished by taking advantage of the specialized synthesis of such protein in differentiated cells.
A major disadvantage of the foregoing procedure is that it is applicable only in the ralatively rare instances where cells can be found engaged in synthesizing primarily a single protein. The majority of proteins of commercial intest are not synthesized in such a specialized way. The desired proteins may be one of a hundred or so different proteins being produced by the cells of a tissue or organism at a given time. Nevertheless, the mRNA isolation technique is useful since the set of RNA species present in the cell usually represents only a fraction of the total sequences existing in the DNA, and thus provides an initial purification.
In a more recent development, U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,877 provides a process whereby nucleotide sequences can be isolated and purified even when present at a frequency as low as 2% of a heterogeneous population of mRNA sequences. Furthermore, the method may be combined with known methods of fractionating mRNA to isolate and purify sequences present in even lower frequency in the total RNA population as initially isolated. The method is generally applicable to mRNA species extracted from virtually any organism and therefore provides a powerful basic tool for the ultimate production of proteins of commercial and research interest, in useful quantities.
The process takes advantage of certain structural features of mRNA and DNA, and makes use of certain enzyme catalyzed reactions. The nature of these reactions and structural details as they are understood in the prior art are described herein and are further detailed in the patent. The symbols and abbreviations used herein are set forth in the following table.
TABLE 2 ______________________________________ DNA - deoxyribonucleic acid A - Adenine RNA - ribonucleic acid T - Thymine cDNA - complementary DNA G - Guanine (enzymatically synthesized C - Cytosine from an mRNA sequence) U - Uracil mRNA - messenger RNA Tris - 2-Amino-2- dATP - deoxyadenosine tri- hydroxymethyl- phosphate 1,3-propanediol dGTP - deoxyguanosine tri- EDTA - ethylene- phosphate diamine tetra- dCTP - deoxycytidine triphosphate acetic acid TCA - Trichloroacetic acid ATP - adenosine dTTP - thymidine triphosphate triphosphate ______________________________________
In its native configuration, DNA exists in the form of paired linear polynucleotide strands. The complementary base pairing relationships described above exist between the paired strands such that each nucleotide base of one strand exists opposite its complement on the other strand. The entire sequence of one strand is mirrored by a complementary sequence on the other strand. If the strands are separate, it is possible to synthesize a new partner strand, starting from the appropriate precursor monomers. The sequence of addition of the monomers starting from one end is determined by, and complementary to, the sequence of the original intact polynucleotide strand, which thus serves as a template for the synthesis of this complementary partner. The synthesis of mRNA corresponding to a specific nucleotide sequence of DNA is understood to follow the same basic principle. Therefore a specific mRNA molecule will have a sequence complementary to one strand of DNA and identical to the sequence of the opposite DNA strand, in the region transcribed. Enzymatic mechanisms exist within living cells which permit the selective transcription of a particular DNA segment containing the nucleotide sequence for a particular protein. Consequently, isolating the mRNA which contains the nucleotide sequence coding for the amino acid sequence of a particular protein is equivalent to the isolation of the same sequence, or gene, from the DNA itself. If the mRNA is retranscribed to form DNA complementary thereto (cDNA), the exact DNA sequence is thereby reconstituted and can, by appropriate techniques, be inserted into the genetic material of another organism. The two complementary versions of a given sequence are therefore inter-convertible and functionally equivalent to each other.
The nucleotide subunits of DNA and RNA are linked together by phosphodiester bonds between the 5' position of one nucleotide sugar and the 3' position of its next neighbor. Reiteration of such linkages produces a linear polynucleotide which has polarity in the sense that one end can be distinguished from the other. The 3' end may have a free 3"-hydroxyl, or the hydroxyl may be substituted with a phosphate or a more complex structure. The same is true of the 5' end. In eucaryotic organisms, i.e., those having a defined nucleus and mitotic apparatus, the synthesis of functional mRNA usually includes the addition of polyadenylic acid to the 3' end of the mRNA. Messenger RNA can therefore be separated from other classes of RNA isolated from an eucaryotic organism by column chromatography on cellulose to which is attached polythymidylic acid. See Aviv and Leder, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, (1972) 69:1408. Other chromatorgraphic methods, exploiting the base-pairing affinity of poly A for chromatographic packing materials, containing oligo dT, poly U, or combinations of poly T and poly U, for example, poly U-Sepharose, are likewise suitable.
Reverse transcriptase catalyzes the synthesis of DNA complementary to an RNA template strand in the presence of the RNA template, a primer which may be any complementary oligo or polynucleotide having a 3'-hydroxyl, and the four deoxynucleotide triphosphates, dATP, dGTP, dCTP, and dTTP. The reaction is initiated by the non-covalent association of the oligodeoxynucleotide primer near the 3' end of mRNA followed by stepwise addition of the appropriate deoxynucleotides, as determined by base-pairing relationships with the mRNA nucleotide sequence, to the 3' end of the growing chain. The product molecule may be described as a hairpin structure in which the original RNA is paired by hydrogen bonding with a complementary strand of DNA partly folded back upon itself at one end. The DNA and RNA strands are not covalently joined to each other. Reverse transcriptase is also capable of catalyzing a similar reaction using a single-stranded DNA template, in which case the resulting product is a double-stranded DNA hairpin having a loop of single-stranded, DNA joining one set of ends. See Aviv and Leder, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (1972) 69:1408 and Efstratiadis, Kafatos, Maxam, and Maniatis, Cell (1976) 7:279.
Restriction endonucleases are enzymes capable of hydrolyzing phosphodiester bonds in DNA, thereby creating a break in the continuity of the DNA strand. If the DNA is in the form of a closed loop, the loop is converted to a linear structure. The principal feature of a restriction enzyme is that its hydrolytic action is exerted only at a point where a specific nucleotide sequence occurs. Such a sequence is termed the restriction site for the restriction endonuclease. Restriction endonuclease from a variety of sources have been isolated and characterized in terms of the nucleotide sequence of their restriction sites. When acting on double-stranded DNA, some restriction endonucleases hydrolyze the phosphodiester bonds on both strands at the same point, producing blunt ends. Others catalyze hydrolysis of bonds separated by a few nucleotides from each other, producing free single-stranded regions at each end of the cleaved molecule. Such single-stranded ends are self-complementary, hence cohesive, and may be used to rejoin the hydrolyzed DNA. Since any DNA susceptible to cleavage by such an enzyme must contain the same recognition site, the same cohesive ends will be produced, so that it is possible to join heterogeneous sequences of DNA which have been treated with restriction endonuclease to other sequences similarly treated. See Roberts, Crit. Rev. Biochem. (1976) 4:123.
It has been observed that restriction sites for a given enzyme are relatively rare and are nonuniformly distributed. Whether a specific restriction site exists within a given segment is a matter which must be empirically determined. However, there is a large and growing number of restriction endonucleases, isolated from a variety of sources with varied site specificity, so that there is a reasonable probability that a given segment of a thousand nucleotides will contain one or more restriction sites.
For general background see Watson, J. D., The Molecular Biology of the Gene, 3d Ed., Benjamin, Menlo Park, Calif., (1976); Davidson, J. N., The Biochemistry of the Nucleic Acids, 8th Ed., Revised by Adams, R. L. P., Burdon, R. H., Campbell, A. M. and Smellie, R. M. S., Academic Press, New York, (1976); and Hayes, W., The Genetics of Bacteria and Their Viruses, Studies in Basic Genetics and Molecular Biology, 2d Ed., Blackwell Scientific Pub., Oxford (1968).